AOL's Q4 earnings are out. The digital media and technology company beat analysts' expectations on EPS, but missed on revenue. Overall it was a positive quarter, with AOL marking double digit growth in both revenue and profit.
A brief look at the numbers:
- Revenue: $710.3 million Vs. analysts' expectations of $721.9 million. Revenue up 5% year over year.
- Adjusted diluted earnings per share: $0.92 Vs. analysts' expectations of $0.71. Up 44% year over year.
- Adjusted OIBDA: $156.7 million Vs. analysts' expectations of $153.1 million. Up 6%.
- Subscription revenue down 5% year-on-year to $148.1 million. Subscribers down 11%.
- ARPU up 6% to $21.18.
- Free cash flow up 42% to $85.8 million.
AOL CEO and chairman Tim Armstrong says in the earnings release: "AOL's global team delivered our second consecutive year of growth in revenue and profits — while we lowered our expenses. AOL is building leading assets in the fastest growing areas of media technology and we are aggressively moving the company forward in 2015.
The company is currently embarking on a major restructuring program that will see it focus its efforts primarily on programmatic advertising and its biggest content brands, like the Huffington Post. That refocus has seen big layoffs across its ad sales team — as the company shifts to more automated ad selling — and has also seen smaller content sites being folded into larger ones.
AOL said it grew programmatic revenue by 250% in 2014. The company said programmatic represented 39% of non-search advertising and other revenue in the 2014 fiscal year.
Overall, global advertising revenue was up 8% year over year to $562.2 million, growth AOL said reflected an increase in the sale of premium ad formats — such as video — across its programmatic platform. Indeed, AOL's year-on-year comparisons now include revenues from Adap.tv, the video advertising platform the company acquired for $405 million in 2013. Next year's earnings will also include revenue generated by Vidible, the cross-screen video management and exchange platform AOL acquired in December 2014.
Here are the big numbers for AOL's full fiscal year 2014:
- Total revenue: +9% to $2.53 billion.
- Adjusted OIBDA +6% to $507.3 billion.
- Adjusted diluted earnings per share: +8% to $2.24.
- Free cash flow: +37% to $264 million.
